Solana Heights Neighbors

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What We've Learned From the Environmental Report (MND)

The City released the Draft MND on September 2.

Evacuation

  1. The report talks about added delay, but not the total evacuation time. The evacuation appendix shows that clearing traffic south of Seneca could already take about 4 hours, even before Vello Retreat is added. With the project, that grows longer. The main MND only highlights the added minutes, not the full four-hour baseline.
  2. The wildfire model and evacuation model paint a dangerous picture when read together. The fire plan models extreme wind-driven fire behavior that could move across roughly two miles in about 18 minutes. The evacuation analysis shows the traffic corridor could take more than four hours to clear. Those two numbers appear in separate appendices but are never directly compared.
  3. The better evacuation result assumes police traffic control. The report lowers the projected delay by assuming a law-enforcement officer would manage traffic at Ventura Avenue and Seneca Street and help convert the roadway for evacuation. But that staffing does not appear to be guaranteed as a formal mitigation measure or project requirement.
  4. No one analysis appears to study fire trucks coming in while residents are trying to get out. The fire plan, evacuation plan, and traffic study are handled separately. The documents do not appear to analyze the real-world situation of emergency vehicles trying to enter while hundreds of residents are evacuating on the same narrow route.

Traffic

  1. Cedar Street itself is barely analyzed. Cedar is the project's main route in and out, yet the evacuation study does not appear to measure its actual width, parked-car conditions, traffic capacity, or evacuation clearance time. It simply describes the local streets as having low traffic today.
  2. The studies use very different road-capacity assumptions. One traffic study assumes a lane can handle about 1,200 vehicles per hour, while the later evacuation study uses about 632 vehicles per hour. That is a major difference. The earlier study also appears to rely on School Canyon Road as an emergency exit.
  3. The evacuation calculation is fairly simple and may not reflect real wildfire traffic. The analysis largely divides the number of vehicles by assumed roadway capacity. It does not appear to use a detailed traffic simulation with real queuing, driver behavior, blocked lanes, panic, or emergency vehicles. It also reduces the number of evacuating vehicles using normal parking and travel assumptions that may not match wildfire conditions.

Soil Contamination

  1. Thousands of cubic yards of soil exceed residential screening levels. The report identifies about 6,090 cubic yards of contaminated soil, with contamination extending as deep as 24 feet. The site was formerly used for large oil tanks and sumps, including one reportedly used for disposal of unknown laboratory chemicals.
  2. The site is not fully cleared for residential health risks yet. The report still requires regulatory oversight, a Soil Management Plan, a Human Health Risk Assessment, and a vapor-intrusion system. In other words, important health and cleanup decisions are still being left for later.

Air Quality and Construction

  1. Construction pollution exceeds the air-quality threshold before mitigation. The MND estimates construction NOx emissions at about 78 pounds per day, compared with a 25-pound-per-day threshold. The project would involve nearly two years of grading and construction, including excavation and removal of contaminated soil.
  2. Nearby homes could also face significant construction noise. The report estimates construction noise at roughly 83 to 84 dBA at the nearest homes, above the cited 80 dBA threshold, with some equipment operating very close to residences on Alabama Street.
Map showing the proposed development site boundary in red, overlaid on the surrounding Solana Heights streets.

Facts as we know them

  • Proposal: 117 new homes are proposed on 17.61 acres bordering Alabama, Navajo, and Cedar Streets — nearly tripling the number of households that would depend on our single shared road (Cedar St.) during an emergency and for daily access.
  • Density: 6.64 units per acre, packed onto a site with only one way in and one way out. More density means more cars competing for the same narrow street the moment it matters most.
  • Construction & Emergency Access: Aera Energy — now California Resources Corporation (CRC) — holds the recorded legal easement to School Canyon Road (Ventura County Instrument No. 98-065449) and has formally denied the developer's request to use it, for construction traffic or for emergency fire access. As proposed today, this development's only way in or out is Cedar Street and the project continues to move forward with the City planners.
  • City/County Jurisdiction: This land sits outside Ventura city limits entirely — it's unincorporated County land the City is actively trying to annex (Case No. ANEX-09-23-0002) specifically to approve this project.
  • Fire Access — We Measured It Ourselves: Cedar Street narrows to just 13 feet of clear driving space once cars are parked on both sides — 7 feet short of the state's 20-foot fire-code minimum. Independent modeling estimates that evacuating Vello Retreat via Cedar Street, where traffic merges from Alabama and Chickasaw streets, could take 30 to 50 minutes. A fast-moving wildfire starting two miles away could reach the neighborhood in roughly 36 minutes.
  • New The City's Own Escape Route Doesn't Reach Us: The City's General Plan requires a second connector road linking Cedar Street to Mohawk Avenue — and the City's own Emergency Evacuation Plan names that corridor as one of only four "major thoroughfares" for our entire evacuation zone. That connector has quietly disappeared from the developer's plans, with no explanation on record.
  • New Mohawk Connector Deletion Request — Still Pending?: For over two years, the City has been sitting on a builder request to erase the Mohawk connector, leaving a gated 20-foot emergency route onto a private oil-field road in its place. We've asked whether it's still pending and haven't heard back — and if it's granted quietly, that decision gets made without us. [Learn More]
  • New The Project Started Much Smaller: The original Vello Retreat proposal was 71 single-family lots with accessory dwelling units — detached homes at "slightly over 4 units per acre," in the applicant's own words.

Get the Latest Info + Public Comment Guide

Hello neighbors,

One of the primary missions of your HOA board is to advocate for the residents of Solana Heights. To that end, we feel, as many of you do, that the proposed Vello Retreat development adjacent to our neighborhood will have a significant negative impact on our community.

Perhaps the biggest issue is the untenable plan to use narrow Cedar St. as the sole means of ingress and egress for this development of 117 homes. This will result in a massive daily traffic increase and turn parts of our quiet community into a congested thoroughfare. In addition, fire evacuation could easily become a nightmare.

We encourage all of you to all of you to voice your opposition to this development as proposed. Please visit sh-neighbors.org where you can find guidelines and sample comment letters to help you get started. An informed and engaged neighborhood will help us maintain the quality of life we enjoy in Solana Heights. Thank you for staying involved and looking out for our community!

The Solana Heights HOA Board